Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

loomis78-815-989034 The drugged up roaming punks pick the wrong house to rob when they come across the elderly couple Victor (Paolini) and Sara (Bettina Milne) at their strange country home. Infested with clocks Victor has collected for seventy years, the unstable Paul (Hintz) flips out and kills the couple along with the grounds keeper (Al Cliver). When this happens, the clocks begin going backwards which does a number on time and soon the elderly couple has come back to life seeking revenge. This made for Italian TV movie came late in the carrier of Lucio Fulci but still manages a Fulci look. Unfortunately, the story telling is a mess and you're never too sure of what and why things are happening. The characters are all Assholes other than the elderly couple so we could care less when they are in pearl. Gore is plentiful and disgusting with a spear being jabbed into a groin in one highlight. The film's biggest mistake is that it just isn't any fun. Fulci's best stuff didn't always make complete sense but it was still fun as hell to go on the ride. This movie is just nasty with crappy characters and no life. Only die hard Lucio Fulci fans need to view this one.

BA_Harrison Given that pretty much all of Fulci's latter day efforts (post-Murderock) suck, it's only natural to assume that The House of Clocks will suck too; but it doesn't. Don't get me wrong, the film won't change the way you think about horror, but it is consistently entertaining throughout, which is good enough for me (I've sat through Sodoma's Ghost, so I know just how bad Fulci can get).A supernatural horror that manages to deliver both a fair amount of creepy atmosphere and revolting gore (the film is surprisingly bloody, considering it was made for TV), House of Clocks stars Paolo Paoloni and Bettine Milne as Vittorio and Sara Corsini, a wealthy old couple who live in a remote country villa, where they spend their time caring for their 'children'—a vast collection of antique clocks and watches—and tending to the corpses of their nephew and his wife, who they have murdered for being greedy.One night, the Corsini's routine is disturbed by the arrival of three hoodlums (Keith Van Hoven, Karina Huff and Peter Hintz) who intend to hold the couple hostage and rob the house; their plans go awry, however, when the elderly couple's protective gardener Peter (Al Cliver) intervenes, and a struggle ensues, during which both Vittorio and Sara are blasted with a shotgun (cue mucho giblets and blood) and Peter is brained on the corner of a desk.Free to search the place for valuables at their leisure, the threesome set about turning the place over; meanwhile, the Corsini's 'children' begin to turn back the hands of time, bringing the dead to life for revenge...Stylish direction, combined with gruesome effects (impalements, a bloody knifing, splattery shotgun wounds) and a wonderfully macabre, underlying sense of humour all go to help make The House of Clocks a delightfully surreal and rather absurd (in a good way) experience that should please most followers of the director's work. In fact, the whole thing is so gloriously off the wall that, for once, even the patently ridiculous Fulci ending seems strangely fitting.6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

Michael_Elliott House of Clocks, The (1989) ** (out of 4) Fair later day Fulci film has three thugs breaking into the home of an elderly couple. The plan is to rob them but the couple end up dead and that's when the thugs learn that the couple has the power to turn back time with their magic clocks. This here was the second of Fulci's two made for TV flicks and it certainly a lot better than the first. As is to be expected, there's quite a bit a gore in the film ranging from a woman getting a pole stabbed into her middle regions, several shotgun blasts and a few other goodies. The performances are also better than I expected they would be but there's certainly no Oscar winners here. The biggest problem is certainly the screenplay, which is pretty simple and too the point. The idea of these clocks seeking revenge is a good one but the script needed a little bit more to pull it along. Fulci's direction is rather tired and laid back without too much style going for it. This certainly isn't among the director's best work and I'm sure the majority will find it quite horrid but having seen most of the director's later day films, I thought it was fair enough.

Coventry Lucio Fulci, infamous for his explicitly violent and downright gross films, surprises his fans (and probably his opponents even more) with this tense and mainly story-driven tale of terror. It is and remains a Fulci effort, so the House of Clocks does contain more gore than your average horror film but still it's awkward not to constantly see eyeballs getting poked out or throats being torn to pieces. This was a movie produced for TV-distribution (which probably also explains the gore-limitation) and script successfully attempts to go for supernatural tension. The House of Clocks revolves on 3 lowlife crooks that plan to rob and home-jack an obviously wealthy elderly couple living in an isolated mansion. This couple, however, isn't as indefensible as they look as they have a bizarre clock-fetish and they keep dark secrets hidden in their basement. When the robbery goes terribly wrong, and all the couple's beloved clocks suddenly stop and turn back; the crooks face unimaginable terror and payback. The film bathes in an uncanny atmosphere and Fulci makes great use of the cool scenery. I can't give a scientific explanation for it, but there's something naturally eerie about a collection of ticking clocks. The idea of showing seemly harmless old people who then turn out mentally deranged isn't exactly new, but it still works and it definitely unsettles you. Near the end, the plot-holes become bigger and bigger and the abrupt plot-twists are disappointing. So, hopefully, the very good first hour of House of Clocks already makes a positive impression on you before the ineptness begins to show. To me it did. Other disadvantages include wooden acting and a very bad case of English dubbing (the DVD I tracked down at least). This is definitely a movie worth checking out in case you're an Italian horror fanatic. For the fans of the more outrageous Fulci-work, he made "Cat in the Brain" one year after this and that certainly is one of the sickest movies ever.